A KEY - Leonard Matlovich

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A: Leonard Matlovich. B: Butch Zeigler. C: planned Frank Kameny site. D: William Mueller. E: Frank O'Reilly.
F: Tom Swann. G: Larry Worrell & James Duell. H: Dan Hering & Joel Leenaars. I: Barbara Gittings & Kay Lahusen.
J: John Frey & Peter Morris. K: Michael Hildebrand. L: Kenneth Dresser & Charles Fowler. M: Peter Doyle.
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Biographical Notes for Congressional Cemetery's Gay Residents
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“I believe that we must be the same activists in our deaths that we were in our lives.” - Leonard Matlovich, The Advocate, June 23, 1987
TSgt. LEONARD MATLOVICH was a gay civil rights and AIDS activist, and the first service member to purposely out himself to create a test court case
to challenge the military ban on gays that began during WWII. He served 12 years in the US Air Force including three tours of Vietnam, was awarded the
Bronze Star for heroism and the Purple Heart for life threatening injuries from a landmine, and was one of the military’s first and most successful Race
Relations Instructors. His unprecedented photo in uniform on the cover of Time magazine in 1975 remains one of the gay rights movement’s most iconic
images as does his headstone which he designed to be a memorial to all gay veterans.
BUTCH ZEIGLER was a onetime elementary school teacher, and co-owner of Capitol Prompting Service whose clients include both Heads of State and
major corporations.
FRANK KAMENY was a WWII veteran and the father of the modern gay rights movement. In 1957, he was fired as an astronomer for the US Army Map
Service after they discovered he was gay. He personally wrought his landmark but unsuccessful appeal to the US Supreme Court. He was a cofounder of
the Mattachine Society of Washington, Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance, and the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. In 1965, he led the first gay rights
protests at the White House, Pentagon, State Department, Civil Service Commission, and Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Later he would coin the
phrase, “Gay is good,” become the first out gay person to run for Congress, help force the American Psychiatric Association to declassify homosexuality
as a mental illness, and create the first test case against the military ban on gay service by Leonard Matlovich.
FRANK WARREN O’REILLY was a WWII veteran with a Ph.D. in International Relations, and a music critic for The Washington Times. and founder of
Miami’s Charles Ives Centennial Festival and the American Chopin Foundation which sponsors an annual national Chopin piano competition. He was a
longtime free lance contributor to Musical America magazine and to ARG.
TOM SWANN is a gay Marine Corps veteran and longtime activist for gay equality. He won a lawsuit against the US Navy for discrimination against him
as a civilian employee after they learned he was gay. He also led the creation of the first memorial for LGBT veterans which is located in Desert Memorial
Park near Palm Springs.
WILLIAM BOYCE MUELLER was the gay grandson of the founder of the Boy Scouts of America. Six years after he and his mother led a procession of
10,000 Scouts to an observance at his grandfather’s Illinois grave for the 75th anniversary of scouting in the United States, Mueller helped create the first
organization to lobby today’s Scout oligarchs to end the their ban on gay Scouts and Scout leaders, Forgotten Scouts. "I don't think my grandfather would
have wanted me excluded from Scouting just because of my sexual orientation. My grandfather would not have tolerated discrimination. He founded the
Boy Scouts for all boys, not just for some. I realized that if people like me don't take a stand, the world isn't going to change."
DAN HERING was a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, and served 20 years in the US Army. Before retiring to Florida, he
and his partner, Joel, lived for a few years in San Francisco where they were members of one of its earliest gay rights groups, the Society for Individual
Rights [SIR] formed in 1964 and among the first to organize the gay vote. They were founding members of the earliest known gay boat club, San
Francisco’s Barbary Coast Boating Club. Dan was also a member of Service Academy Gay & Lesbian Alumni {SAGLA] and Knights Out, the association
of gay West Point graduates.
continued
BARBARA GITTINGS & KAY TOBIN LAHUSEN were together for 46 years during which they were major figures in the gay rights movement. Both were
close allies of Frank Kameny with whom Barbara helped convince the American Psychiatric Association to declassify homosexuality as a mental illness,
and fought dismissals of gay civilian employees by the Department of Defense and other federal government agencies. She also created the first
bibliography of books about gays, founded the New York chapter of the lesbian rights organization the Daughters of Bilitis, and edited their magazine, The
Ladder. In addition to being a cofounder of New York's Gay Activist Alliance, Kay authored the first book on American gay rights pioneers, 1972's The
Gay Crusaders, and photographed many of the movement’s most historical events such as the first White House protests in 1965.
JOHN FREY & PETER MORRIS. Together 43 years, they met while Catholic University students at DC’s then most popular gay male establishment, the
piano bar/restaurant the Chicken Hut on H Street near Lafayette Park where biweekly, Sunday afternoon gay dances were later sponsored by the
Mattachine Society of Washington in 1961 and 1962. Frey was a Fulbright Scholar, professor of Romance Languages at George Washington University,
and author of books on Victor Hugo and Emile Zola. Morris was an expert French cook, and on the Board of Directors of the gay Catholic organization
Dignity for whom he coauthored a community cookbook.
In the absence of any other information at this time, MICHAEL WILLIAM HILDEBRAND is presumed to be gay because of the proximity of his grave to
that of John Frey and Peter Morris suggesting they might have been friends, and because of the shape and color of his unique gravestone reminiscent of
the Pink Triangle, the symbol gay men were forced to wear in Nazi concentration camps.
KENNETH DRESSER & CHARLES FOWLER. The “artistry [that] enchanted millions” referred to on Dresser’s side of the shared stone was the Electric
Light Parade at Disneyland, the Electric Water Pageant at Epcot,, and the Fantasy of Lights at Callaway Gardens, Georgia—all designed by Dresser.
Charles Fowler was an arts educator and writer, director of National Cultural Resources, Inc., and a guest professor at several American universities.
PETER DOYLE, a veteran of the Confederate Army, is thought by historians to have been the greatest love of gay American poet Walt Whitman. They
met in Washington DC on the horse-drawn streetcar for which Doyle was the conductor who later recalled, "We were familiar at once—I put my hand on
his knee—we understood. He did not get out at the end of the trip—in fact went all the way back with me.” They exchanged several letters and postcards,
and Whitman, who used the code “16.4” (representing the numerical order of Doyle’s initials) to disguise references to him in his notebooks, wrote in one
letter to him, “I will imagine you with your arm around my neck saying Good night, Walt—& me—Good night, Pete."
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